Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own Doctor Who and make no profit from it.

At Martha's cry, the Doctor set off running down the hall, caroming off the walls since he seemed unable to run straight. He stumbled outside to see that Martha had flung herself across the cart, arms splayed protectively over the egg sac. Charlemagne stood by her, sword drawn, glaring in all directions at a threat he could not see.

"Doctor! The Brood! They just started rising into the air; I had to throw myself on top to hold them down."

"They're waking up? I told you to—"

"I did!" she shouted. "They're sound asleep. This wasn't them. Something was pulling them up. I could feel it pulling at me too. Just like back in the Ardennes. Only I guess it's not strong enough to lift us together just yet. Actually, come to think of it, I don't think I feel it anymore." Slowly, cautiously, she stood and released her grip on the red casing.

The Doctor, swaying slightly, put one hand on the cart to maintain his balance, reached the other hand into a pocket and pulled out the rift detector. And then he, like everyone else, gasped at what it revealed. The pink cloud was much larger, much lower than when last he had seen it, the pulsation more erratic and more urgent. Pink funnels spun from the cloud, little tornados of time, reaching and extending and retracting. One stretched down toward the roadside to their left, and a stand of foxglove vanished, leaving only clods of earth to show where it had been uprooted.

That galvanized the Time Lord into action. He gave the cart a mighty shove towards the Sintepian spaceship. "Assistant! Are those heat shields done?"

The robot straightened from its repair task. "Yes."

"Then go! Get out of here! Now!" He clapped his hands on the shoulders of the two humans and propelled them towards the TARDIS. "In-in-in! Hurry!"

Martha managed to fumble her key into the lock and then they were through the door. And none too soon; the Doctor had no sooner slammed the door shut than a violent tremor sent them all flying. It felt as though the TARDIS were cartwheeling in five different directions at once, and they all clung to the railings, to the console, to each other.

At last everything was still and quiet. The Doctor pulled himself up off the floor, breathing hard. There would be bruises, he could tell, but at least here in the TARDIS he was free from vertigo, shielded from the effects of the time flux. He looked around at his companions. "Everyone all right?"

Charlemagne was already on his feet, staring around him. "I am fine. Do you know where we are now?"

Martha was a bit slower to rise, but she too seemed relatively unscathed.

"I must say, Charles, you're taking this all pretty calmly," the Doctor said. "Not even a word about my ship being bigger on the inside."

The king waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, the girl explained it to me: that when I stepped into the magic circle, I was transported into a fairy world."

"Inside of a dewdrop," Martha added. The Doctor arched his eyebrows at her, and she shrugged.

"I must say," Charlemagne continued, "The fairy world is not as I expected. But nothing here surprises me."

The Doctor grinned. "That's the spirit. And to answer your question, Your Majesty…" He flipped on the monitor, studied the view of the outside. "Well, actually, it looks like we haven't moved."

"Really?" Martha said. "Because it sure felt like we moved."

"No, we're still in the same place. The Sintepians are too. See, it's…Oh, wait." He punched a few buttons, studied a few readouts. "Yes, we're in exactly the same spot in space, but not in time. We've gone backwards a year. Oh, a year! Perfect, the Sintepians can make it to their breeding planet right on time!" He ran to the door, flung it open, took half a step outside, and had to grab the doorframe to keep from pitching over.

"Doctor, what's wrong?"

"The time flux. I've got to get Charlemagne back fast. But first I've got to close the rift. And even more first, I've got to get the Sintepians out of here before the rift picks us all up again. Here." He shoved the rift detector into her hands. "Go tell them, would you?"

Martha dashed past him to the spaceship, using the visibility the detector provided to pick and weave her way around the pink tongues lapping out of the cloud, and pounded on the metal hull with her fists, shouting, "You're back in your own time! Go home, quick!" until she heard the sound of the engines spinning to life.

When she arrived back in the TARDIS, the Doctor was just finishing up some settings on the console. "They're on their way? Good. Now for the rift." He took the detector from her, moved to the doorway, illuminated the roiling timestorm.

Martha watched him watching the cloud for several minutes. "So are you cooking up a plan to fix this thing, or what?"

"A plan? Oh, it's all taken care of already. You know, I wasn't just twiddling my thumbs while the TARDIS was tracking you through time and space; I was putting this thing together. This device doesn't just show the rift; press this red button here, and the rift is healed forever."

"That simple? So what are you waiting for? Press it already."

He ignored her, stared up into the sky for another minute. At last he said, "I entered a couple presets on the console. The blue one will take you to the Ardennes, 778. Make sure Charlemagne gets home safe. The yellow one will bring you back to London, just a couple of weeks after I first picked you up. You'll scarcely have been missed; you can just tell everyone you were away on holiday."

"What are you talking about? What do we need presets for? You're the pilot." There was a sharp edge to her voice that bordered on panic. Charlemagne must have noticed it too, because the Doctor could see from the corner of his eye that the king had left off aimlessly wandering the room to come stand over his shoulder.

"Well, see, the thing is that it is that simple, all I have to do is press this button, except…except that I have to be inside the rift when I press it."

Martha blanched. "You're going to blow yourself up?"

"Oh, no-no-no-no," he hastened to assure her. "No explosion. The rift will seal itself off, and I'll be popped out of it. Only…I could end up anywhere. I mean, this thing has four terminus points that we know of, and who knows how many more are out there. Chances of me landing back here at the TARDIS are…well, not so high." The enormity, the finality of what he was about to do hit him. No more TARDIS, no more adventures, no more devil-may-care gallivanting through time and space. Stuck in one place for the rest of his long life…and that was if he were lucky. He felt his throat filling with unshed tears, but he swallowed them down resolutely, continued brightly, "But you've got the presets, so you'll be fine."

"Oh, this is ridiculous," she said impatiently. "I'll do it. Give me another of those tracking disks, I'll jump in and close off the rift, and then you come pick me up, yeah? Just like last time."

"And what if the rift dumps you out into deep space? Or the bottom of the ocean? Or some planet where the atmosphere is pure methane? We got lucky last time, Martha."

"I'm willing to chance it."

For a moment, in his selfishness, looking into her eyes so artless and sincere, her offer tempted him. Then he shook his head. "But I'm not." He could learn to live without the travelling. But he couldn't live with himself if he stood back and let her die in his place.

Not wanting to give her further opportunity to argue who should make the sacrifice, he stepped out of the TARDIS. As soon as he passed the threshold of the protective environment of the timeship, the time flux hit him like a freight train; the ground pitched beneath his feet, his vision clouded, his gorge rose. By sheer stubborn willpower, he managed to take three steps forward before pitching onto his knees.

Martha moved towards him, but someone else was faster; before the Doctor could react or resist, Charlemagne snatched the detector from his hands and dashed across the road, heading for the nearest funnel spinning out of the storm. "Give someone else the chance to play the hero for once, Doctor," he yelled over his shoulder.

"No!" the Doctor cried, and crawled forward a few feet on his hands and knees. But it was too late; the king vanished. And then Martha's arms were around his shoulders, helping him back to his feet, and they stood together, watching the timecloud still illuminated by the device now within it. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. And then the cloud slowly shrank in on itself until it was gone, and the sky was clear and blue, and the air was warm and tranquil, and the Doctor's horror faded as he came to a realization.

Martha let go of him, hugged herself, shivering slightly. "Now what do we do?" Her voice was barely above a whisper.

"Do? Well, that depends on you. What do you fancy? Past? Future? Another galaxy?"

"No, I mean, what do we do about Charlemagne? How do we get him back?"

"He's already back. He's in his own time. He's home."

"How can you possibly know that? You said yourself that he could end up anywhere."

"I know because I'm standing. Look at me. I'm all better!" He threw his arms wide, twirled around to prove his point.

"Well, of course you're better, the rift is healed, but that doesn't mean—"

"No, no, it wasn't the rift that was making me sick, it was the flux. History was rewriting itself without Charlemagne. Very disorienting. But now I'm better, and history is intact, and that can only mean that he is back in his proper place. Hopefully thinking that everything that happened to him was just a bad dream."

"So it's done? It's all over?" She looked as if she didn't quite dare believe it.

"Let's see." He ticked the points off on his fingers. "Sintepians are in their proper time and on their way home. Charlemagne is in his proper time. Rift has closed up. We're both still in one piece and together and with the TARDIS. I'd say that about takes care of everything."

"Wait, you never did give Charlemagne back his machete, did you?"

"Didn't I?" The Doctor's air was studied innocence. "Oh well, too late now. I'll have to add it to my souvenir collection. But that doesn't matter. What really matters is…We did it!" The Doctor threw one arm around Martha's shoulders, hugged her to his side. He realized his mistake as soon as she relaxed against him and rested her head on his shoulder. He was forever doing this to her, he reflected: always just a little too comfortable, never recognizing how his words and actions affected her until it was too late.

He was contemplating whether it would be crueler to remove his arm or leave it where it was, when suddenly the choice was taken from him. He found himself embracing empty air, his arm falling back to his side. He whirled around. Just inches away was a terrible sight, a sculptured rictus of snarling lips and bared fangs, a deadly hand poised to strike again.

"Weeping Angel," he breathed, careful to keep his eyes fixed on the living stone. He had heard tales of them, but this was the first time he had ever seen one, face to frozen face.

He took several steps back, then stopped. "Wait, think this through, Doctor." Martha was gone, and he had no idea when or where. The only sure way to find her was to follow her. This was what Sally Sparrow had been warning him about. He patted his suit jacket, felt the bulk of Sally's manuscript pressed against one heart. It was their road map to safety, he knew, their guarantee that they would get through this. "I'm coming for you, Martha. We'll be fine – just another adventure." And then he closed his eyes, offered himself up, let a cold touch send him tumbling through space and time.

THE END